NYS Lawmakers Want Portion Of A Rockland Road Named For Thurgood Marshall

Friday is Thurgood Marshall Day in New York. And a number of state and local officials will be on hand in Rockland County to talk about legislation to name a section of a road in honor of Justice Marshall’s legacy.

May 17th is also the 65th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that ruled school segregation unconstitutional. Democrats Ellen Jaffee and David Carlucci have sponsored legislation in the assembly and senate, respectively, to designate the portion of state Route 17 in the village of Hillburn, which is in the town of Ramapo, as the "Justice Thurgood Marshall Memorial Highway.” Marshall was the first African-American Supreme Court justice. The lawmakers and area officials will be in Hillburn, site of the former Main School, which Marshall fought to desegregate. The site is now home to the Suffern Central School District Administration building, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.

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Thurgood Marshall the first African American to be nominated to the Supreme Court, brought down the separate but equal doctrine, integrated schools, worked with the NAACP's legal defense fund, and not only fought for human rights and human dignity, but also made them impossible to deny in the courts and in the streets. In a new biography, Showdown: Thurgood Marshall And The Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America, award winning author, Will Haygood, details the life and career of one of the most transformative legal minds of the past one hundred years.

The struggle to desegregate America's schools was a grassroots movement, and young women were its vanguard. In the late 1940s, parents began to file desegregation lawsuits with their daughters, forcing Thurgood Marshall and other civil rights lawyers to take up the issue and bring it to the Supreme Court. After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, girls far outnumbered boys in volunteering to desegregate formerly all-white schools.

In "A Girl Stands at the Door," historian Rachel Devlin tells the remarkable stories of these desegregation pioneers. She also explains why black girls were seen, and saw themselves, as responsible for the difficult work of reaching across the color line in public schools.

Rachel Devlin is an associate professor of history at Rutgers University.

James F. Simon is dean emeritus at New York Law School. He is the author of nine books on American history, law, and politics, and has won the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award.

His new book, "Eisenhower vs. Warren: The Battle for Civil Rights and Liberties," brings to life the bitter feud between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Chief Justice Earl Warren framed the tumultuous future of the modern civil rights movement.

Backers of a bill in the New York state legislature say the measles outbreak in Rockland County could give their legislation momentum. The bill would repeal exemptions from vaccination requirements for children due to religious beliefs. The renewed focus comes after the Rockland County executive declared a state of emergency Tuesday.